Event

Winter Winds

On January 14, the newly reopened Commodore Bar & Restaurant, St. Paul will become a Parisian salon with intimate chamber music. A cabaret-style concert entitled Winter Winds will feature five woodwind and brass players from the Minnesota Orchestra with Twin Cities pianist Susan Billmeyer.

The event is free of charge with cocktails beginning at 6:30 p.m. and music at 7:00 p.m.

The program will open with Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's Quintet in E-flat for Piano and Winds. After it's premier in March 1784, Mozart wrote of it: "I myself consider it to be the best thing I have written in my life." The second half of the program features works by Jacques Ibert and Francis Poulenc, both of whom wrote primarily during the Parisian Jazz Age of the 1920s and 30s. Ibert's Trois Pieces Breves for wind quintet demonstrate his eclectic and frivolous style, featuring each instrument in different pairings.

Poulenc's Sextet for Wind and Piano rounds out the program. Known for his quirky and satirical style, the composer takes full advantage of the jazziness and songfulness of the woodwind voices with all of the character of the 1930s in which it was composed.

Each piece received its premier during the chilly months of European winter appropriate for an evening of music and joie de vivre at The Commodore.

Minnesota Orchestra musicians Roma Duncan (flute), Julie Gramolini (oboe), Timothy Zavadil (clarinet), Christopher Marshall (bassoon), and Bruce Hudson (horn) will be featured along with pianist Susan Billmeyer. Each of these musicians also performs on the roster of the Lakes Area Music Festival which is presenting the winter series in partnership with the University Club of St. Paul.

Seating for the upcoming performance is limited.